Closing in on the End

Greetings from Alkmaar, Noordholland.  Our guide book told us that this town has all the things tourists usually look for in a Dutch town.  We can attest to that.

 
My favorite little house in Alkmaar has a red dutch door with bird

house to match

Alkmaar, a Tucson size city about a 30 minute train ride north of Amsterdam, has an old fashioned cheese market each Friday during the summer; it has a beer museum; the required cathedral; it has outdoor concerts; a beach nearby; it has boat rentals for touring the canals that surround the old part of town; it has a clock tower that chimes a sprightly little tune which echoes over the marina every half hour...24 hours a day.  

The noisy clock tower

 The cathedral's tower also has loud bells

 A boat lift that's able to carry almost anything

 Winter storage for our boat

This town is charming and quaint with good restaurants, great shopping and…a minor miracle…a place to store our boat for the winter.  We are happy.

 The Alkmaar cheese market

Oh, yummy

Yogi-dog and I heading home after the cheese market

Alkmaar has nice parks for dog walking

A gay pride parade through the marina

Shoppers enjoying a McDonald's drum band

The drum band beginning their parade through Alkmaar